Manor and Valora, the two major Swiss retailers, are planning to sell Bitcoin gift cards in their stores across Switzerland.
It has been reported that Manor, the country’s largest department store chain, is already selling Bitcoin voucher cards in 59 of its branches.
However, the retail giant Valora will begin selling BTC gift cards in its kiosks across the country starting April 1.
The report said that named “Cryptonow,” the Bitcoin vouchers are from the stables of Värdex Suisse, a cryptocurrency financial services firm. Värdex is also a subsidiary of major Swiss crypto exchange Bitcoin Suisse.
Simon Grylka, the head of operations at Värdex, said that Cryptonow offers a simple onboarding channel for would-be cryptocurrency adopters daunted by the usual avenues for acquiring virtual currency. For Grylka, the Cryptonow voucher is akin to digital gold coins.
Bitcoin has found a new home in Switzerland as major department stores begin to sell BTC gift cards. With the price of digital gold nearing its all-time high, will these vouchers fly off the shelves, or will shoppers wait for the next dip? https://t.co/puGl9zGkG6 — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) March 10, 2021
Likewise, the Cryptonow voucher cards will be available in three different variants ranging from 100 to 500 francs ($107 to $535). The Värdex Bitcoin gift card product is coming amid continued growth in Switzerland’s crypto and blockchain industry.
As it has been reported earlier, the top-50 blockchain firms in the Crypto Valley are up more than 680% in value since mid-2020. With merchant adoption of BTC still growing, Cryptonow owners are limited in how to spend their Bitcoin gift cards.
Currently, the options available to them would be to redeem the vouchers through an exchange service or sell the BTC amount loaded on the card using one of the 70 Bitcoin ATMs operated by Värdex. With the fixed and marginal fees charged by the retailers for acquiring the cards, Cryptonow in its present iteration seems mostly to be a novelty way of acquiring Bitcoin.
As per the sources, Cryptonow is one of the first products that offer gift cards loaded with cryptocurrency, while there are several avenues that offer crypto-to-gift card trading.
Thus, the use of gift cards to purchase cryptocurrency is popular in the peer-to-peer trading arena especially in jurisdictions with underdeveloped financial services infrastructure.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Wallet Hub